A Slight Deviation
by Alder Niis
Summary: What could happen to a normal girl with a whole lot of life problems? She dies, apparently. Oh, and she goes to Marie Jois, born into it. That's what.
1. Chapter One: Exposition

**Heyo, people! I'm back and better than ever! Actually, just better, it really wouldn't make much sense to put the "than ever" bit there I haven't been around long enough for it I'm only thirteen, BUT ANYWAY! *Deep inhale* So new story guys hope you like it n' stuff.**

 **Oh yeah, and I don't own One Piece. And that.**

Chapter One: I'd Call it Exposition

The life of Joule Geisel was not a glamorous one. She was neglected as a child, and as a result grew depressed later in life, drawing into herself, watching more anime in one week then most would in a month, and was generally bad at social interaction. Despite this, she did well in school, had some friends, if one could call those people you sit across from, sometimes exchanging a word with, a friend, and managed to do fairly well for herself, moneywise. Being in high school, she still lived with her parents, but they were so detached, it would be a surprise if they even knew she was there. They were heavy drinkers; it was hard to go anywhere in the house that it didn't smell like alcohol, in fact, Joule's room was probably the only neutral smelling place in there. Not that her room was a great place, lacking some essentials, like a bed, a nightstand and a dresser. She had to provide everything for herself, the only thing her parents gave her was her name, and as such, she treasured it.

Change in POV: Third Person, Joule's Perspective

Joule was walking home from school, humming a little tuneless tune. Anyone walking by would see a perfectly normal teenage girl walking home from school, dreading homework, looking forward to sports or whatever, but what she felt greatly contrasted her outward appearance. A mess of emotions hung about her mind, lyrics to an unwritten song were attempting to keep her busy, but failed to do so, as they kept on being words about her depression. She stopped humming, an abrupt silence filling the air around her as her feet stopped moving. She gave a bark of laughter, before rubbing at her eyes, and saying quietly in a shaky voice

"Man, I'm pathetic. I take a ball to the face without a word of complaint, and when someone neglects to tell me about a new _pet_ I want to cry? Jeez, I'm a total wreck." There was a pause when she rubbed her eyes again, and examined her hands. "That is, if I even _can_ cry. Seriously Joule, can't you even cry like a normal person?" She sighed, starting to walk again, her lower jaw clenched to prevent it trembling. There were a series of roads leading to her house, all moderately developed. She passed her favorite park, the one with the picnic table she loved to sit on, and look at the clouds from. She turned onto Summit Street, where her house was, and breathed in the sweet scent of fall flowers.

She walked up to her house, a nice looking structure, colored light blue, with a small flower garden out front. It was Joule who attended the garden, she couldn't let the flowers all die, and it would be a shame to let the house's appearance deteriorate. The paint job hadn't been touched for at least twenty years, so it was cracking at places. The gutters were full of leaves, another thing she would have to take care of later. She walked up to the front porch and pulled out a key. She stuck it in the lock, but, to her surprise, it was unlocked. She put away the key and opened the door. Joule nearly gagged at the stench of alcohol. It was insanely overpowering, enough to make the staunchest alcohol lover reel. It didn't seem to bother her parents at all. She stood there, backpack digging into her shoulders, until she adjusted to the scent.

I'm home." Of course, there was no response. Her parents were likely asleep upstairs, or even out of the house. She sighed, not because of the lack of response, but since the door had not been locked; what if someone had broken in? Precious belongings might have been stolen, which no doubt Joule would be blamed for. She looked around at the state of disarray in the house. There were coats and shoes all over the floor in the entry hall, and countless wine, and whiskey and beer bottles piled up in the kitchen. She turned down the hall to the left, opened the door to her room, entered quickly and shut the door. She took of her backpack, setting it on the floor, before collapsing onto the blanket she slept on. She grabbed her laptop from the wall, and started loading up the web browser. The six months of babysitting were agonizing; the neighbor's kids were absolutely awful, it seemed as though they went out of their way to make her job harder, but the work was well worth it. The laptop was necessary, there was no other computer in the house, and the extension cord was needed to have it run. The crunchyroll membership was her being selfish, and nothing else, but it got plenty of use, which was probably not a very good thing, but it made her a little bit happy. The new page screen shone into her face. Today was Wednesday, that meant another chapter of One Piece, and her daily ritual of youtube. She loaded up youtube first, to see if there were any new videos worth watching. She was scrolling through the videos, when she heard a scuffing sound outside her door.

"Hello?" She said, getting up and walking to the door, "Who's there?" There was no sound, the scuffing was probably her imagination, but she opened the door anyway, careful not to breathe in the alcohol. She looked around the door, into both sides of the hall. "Huh. Guess it really _was_ my—gaah!" She had turned around to go back in my room, when something cold slipped between Joule's ribs, making her cough up blood, and causing pain to flower around the knife. She gave a short shriek.

"Who… are you?" She gasped, unable to twist around to look at her assailant. She was asking a rather silly question, but her mind was a jumble of pain. She got her thoughts in enough order to ask something relevant. "Why… did—"

"Listen girl, I really don't want to kill anyone today. You have three seconds to tell me where the money is; maybe I'll call an ambulance." The voice was gruff, a man's. Obviously he had no qualms with killing anybody, but she was probably useful, maybe his only informant.

"I… don't… what… do you mean? What… money?" The knife was pushed in further, causing more blood to be coughed up, while a rough hand prevented Joule from screaming.

"Don't play dumb with me, girl. Tell me where it is, now!" The hand was removed, leaving Joule gasping for air. "I… don't know… my parents… they… told nothing…" The man's hand left the knife, letting her fall to the floor, landing awkwardly with her head laying to the side.

"Hmmph. You don't know, huh? I guess I'll head to the basement then." Joule heard the sounds of footsteps, and a muttered swear word. She was left there, bleeding out on the linoleum, her last thoughts being those of regret. ' _Dammit! What on earth did I do to deserve this? I can't be dying! Surely this is all a dream, right? I can't be dying! I can't… I just can't…_ '

 **Well,** ** _that_** **escalated quickly, didn't it. Sorry bout that, I just really don't want to spend a ton of time on... earth, so I tried to cram it all into one chapter, and then this happened. So you're gonna live with it. Buhbye!**

 **-Alder**


	2. Chapter Two: Setup

**Hey guys, her's chapter tow! I meant to get this up on Wednesday, but I was busy, sorry. I actually don't know what my upload schedule is yet; I'll just go whenever till I get a better rhythm going. On with the chapter!**

Chapter Two: Setup is My Favorite

?-Third Person

It was warm, no, that's not right. It was quite possibly warm. She was floating, or, maybe not, in here. If 'here' was a place. And if 'she' was a she. It was hard to be sure of anything. The (maybe) person existed. Or maybe not. But if anything was true, that was. There wasn't light, but it wasn't necessarily dark. There wasn't noise, but if they, or possibly, _it_ , didn't do anything, it almost was like there was. Little clips of sound tidbits; parts of an unrecognizable song, laughter, a mother's soothing words, the tinkle of broken glass, etc., were repeated over and over in its mind, with no apparent pattern, but it was sure there was one. It was not sure how long it had been there, or if time was even a concept in… _wherever_ this was. It seemed to it that there were no such things as senses in this place, for whatever reason, it did not know. It supposed it was curious; it wanted to experiment, to move, to do anything. Perhaps it was bored. It couldn't remember what happened before this; _if_ there was a before. It decided to embrace the nothingness this place was, it was rather comforting, really.

Nope, it was definitely bored. Sitting, err, _existing_ around, doing nothing did not appeal to it at all. ' _Huh_?' It thought. It felt to it a flicker of sensation, completely unlike any of the imagined ones it thought of in this state. Again, another, stronger, feeling of sensation came. There was sound this time. The sensation came again, much stronger than before, jerking it out of the quiet stillness, and into the world of light. It didn't want to have all of the sensation at once. There was too much noise, and light, and sterile smell; it couldn't stand it. There was a cry, it had come from it? It was fairly sure it was a she, and a baby. There was another cry, involuntarily coming from her. There were soothing words from an unknown female, possibly her mother, words she didn't understand. It was probably a language of some kind. There was one word in particular that really stood out for some reason. The word sounded something like 'Slaw-Jaw-Nuh', and it was different. The other words obviously had some kind of meaning to them, but this one... didn't. What kind of word doesn't have a meaning? She thought it very strange, that a word without meaning would be used so casually. Was it her name? It was possible, but it didn't feel quite right to her. Her name wasn't 'Slaw-Jaw-Nuh', it was, umm, it was... it was... She couldn't remember! She did have one, just, well, something was wrong! It wasn't there! The words the female was saying were familiar, oddly enough, but she couldn't place why. She didn't understand them, but it was like she had heard it before, enough that she could recognize the words. Maybe she shouldn't think about it. She was getting a headache. She heard the cries stop, and slowly, she began to fall asleep.

The first years passed in an instant. She was vaguely aware that she was rich, she often saw servants scurrying around, doing what, she did not know. Once, she caught sight of a strange collar on the servants, which gave her a splitting headache when she realized she recognized it. The language was still quite foreign, but when she was two, she said her first word; mom. Or, what she assumed was mom. The other words came slowly, and it took six months for her to make a coherent phrase, and another month after that for her to, begrudgingly, recognize her name. When she was four, she was learning much faster, language making sense, written words were understandable, and basic math was easy at its hardest. She was barely four when she learned her name, Sladjana. She didn't like it one bit, but without anything else to go by, she didn't have much choice. Thankfully, the servants seemed perfectly content with calling her 'Miss', or 'Master', so she had some solace.

Now she was almost five, and she could hardly sit still in her seat. She was being tutored on geography, but they hadn't even started, because she wouldn't sit still. She caught the look of discomfort on his face, and sat up and started paying attention. "Oh, sorry" she said little sheepishly, and the tutor froze, and started stuttering madly.

"What? O-o-ohh, no, there's no need to apologize, m-m-miss. Entirely my fault, I apologize." Now that was awful curious, she, Sladjana, was the one at fault, and she had every intention of apologizing for it. "Nope, I'm sorry, and that's final."

"But you did nothing wrong, I must apologize." She bit her cheek. "But _you_ did nothing wrong, and you were uncomfortable, so I'm apologizing for that." The tutor was silent. He looked confused, and then scared, and then accepting. Had she seen the scared look? It was there so briefly, she wasn't sure.

"Today, miss, you shall be learning geography, do you know what that is?" I nodded enthusiastically, before answering, "Yes, it's, umm, it's places, and… just places, maybe." The tutor, she would have to ask his name, nodded and smiled. "Very good. To be specific, or rather, broad, it is the study of all the physical features of the planet. We will start today, with a general overview of the planet. We will study a map, and learn basic areas of the world." Sladjana's hand shot up in the air and was waving in the air. "Yes?" She set her hand down and blurted out, "What's your name, mister?" The tutor almost choked at that, before regaining his composure.

"You may call me Mr. B" Sladjana smiled, and Mr. B continued. "So, I have been provided with a map, just let me set it up real quick." Mr. B turned to the chalkboard, and started thinking as he taped up the map. ' _This is probably the weirdest thing that I have ever seen. Is this kid even one of the tenryuubito? She's so... nice. And smart. The only tenryuubito I've run into have been practically monsters, with little to no idea as to how the world really works. And this kid… She's smarter than most adults. You'll never hear me say this, but I'm glad she's a tenryuubito. It would be a great shame is all that potential was squandered. How old is she, anyway, five? You'd think you're at least talking to a 16-year-old, it's insane that all that knowledge was stored inside a toddler._ ' He looked back at the child, to more closely examine her. She was actually quite pretty, or at least would be in her later years. She had a rich brown hair, that had a little curl at the end and bright green eyes that shouted intelligence. She was scribbling something on a piece of paper, exchanging colors; red to blue, Blue to green, green to purple, and so on.

' _What's going on inside her head?_ _Is she toying with me? There is no way in hell that a tenryuubito, even a small child like this can be so amicable. I don't like it.'_

"So, today, we will study the map, and learn the basic regions." Sladjana looked up, and winced upon seeing the map. "Are you alright, miss?" Mr. B hovered near to her as she looked up with a forced smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. Please continue." He got up to the board troubled, and continued. "So here, on the map, you can see the five main seas of the world. We call them the four blues and the grand line." She winced again, but quickly covered it up with a smile. "Uh huh, so, where are we?" Mr. B looked at the girl, and her thinly veiled grimace, and decided to continue besides. "Well, good of you to ask, miss. We are on this mountain, in the middle of the map. Right here, in a city called Marie Joise." She was twitching slightly, her smile having faded.

"Is that city special somehow? It looks really big on the map." He frowned at this behavior, but decided to answer her question, as she hadn't outright asked for assistance. "Yes, it's very special, only a select few can live there."

"Hmm, and those people are?" She was sweating from the effort of not screaming.

"The tenryuubito. Like you." There was no noise. She closed her eyes, and her chair fell backwards. She was unconscious. Mr. B's eyes widened and he rushed over to her. _'What the hell is this girl? Whatever she is, she's not normal._ '

 **Thanks to Elise447, Jisca, .63, and irenia for following, and .63, irenia, and northwind132 for favoriting.**

 **Guest: Thank you! I hope it holds up to your expectations**

 **irenia: Well, not sure how to respond to that, but... here? Hope you like it!**

 **Buhbye,**

 **Alder**


	3. Chapter Three: Conflict

**Oh my god, everybody, I am so so so so so so so so sorry. I never meant it to take… , well, wow! How long has it been since I updated? Wowee wow wow! Four Months! Heh, a happy holidays and New Year's! And other holidays I missed! Ehh... I literally have no excuse! I mean I have, like one for the week before Christmas, I had family stuff where we had a trip to Florida, but, yeah, three months, wow... Actually, funny story, just yesterday, I was diagnosed with the flu, so yeah. Well, anyway, who likes stories! I do! I'm assuming you do too! Here's one right here** ** **!****

 ** **Chapter Three: Do We Even Know the Conflict?****

Why had she started to hide the headaches? It might have been because of the time she got one from her mom's hair. She was three when that happened, she was sitting in her mother's lap. It was a bright sunny day, a month or two after her birthday. A musician was nearby, playing a lovely song on a viola. She looked up at her mother to tell her that the song was beautiful, but upon seeing her hair done up very strangely, a headache hit her, causing her to cry out.

"Momma, momma! My head! My head!" She cried, her mother looked down in shock and fear, before immediately stopping the musician, and sending him off. She hadn't seen the musician since then.

Perhaps there was part of her that thought her parents and their estate were bad, and feared what would happen if they found out. She had sometimes hear her father, behind closed doors, yelling at someone, followed by a loud explosion sound. Then there was a scream. The noise and the scream terrified her.

Maybe it was that Part She Did Not Know, the part that brought the headaches in the first place. It was a spot in the middle of her head that it spawned from, the same spot that hurt when she thought about things that she didn't realize she was thinking about, and when she did, she couldn't think about them anymore. She felt there was something there, but didn't know what. Things like here name. She hadn't thought about her name for years. The Part She Did Not Know, she'd better give it an acronym, but how on earth did she know what an acronym was, and what was earth? The PSDNK was the bane of her existence, but it was strangely... comforting, somehow. Like an annoying younger brother, but painful. She felt protective of it, and didn't feel it was safe in her parents hands.

First Person- Sladjana

I opened my eyes slowly, taking time to adjust to the harsh, white light I was surrounded in. Where was I? I tilted my head to see a line of medical-ish looking equipment. A hospital, was that it? I sat up on the bed that was oddly comfortable for a hospital bed, and heard my mother say something. I turned to see her standing outside of the room, that appeared to be some kind of operating theatre. Wait... what the heck was an operating theatre? Hmm, probably not important. She caught my eye, and rushed into the room.

"Oh, my baby! My baby!" She cried. "Are you okay, honey? Oh, you poor child! It must have been so dreadful, oh I'm so sorry!" She pulled me into a suffocating hug. I frowned, my little face pulling into a poor imitation of a scowl. "I'm fine, Momma. It... it was just a headache. It's not an issue." She pulled me away and looked at me, searching my face. She bit her lip and pulled me into another embrace. "Oh, darling! Oh, my little baby's all grown up!" She burst into tears by my ear, making me very confused.

"Momma, why are you crying?" She pulled away again, and wiped a cheek. "Oh, my dearest Sladjana, I am only proud of you. I have never seen a child as intelligent as you- oh, and how mature you are, it's enough to drive me to tears!" She pulled me into another embrace.

"Here, darling, let's get you out this nasty hospital and back to your room, okay?" She hooked my arm and started to drag me out of the hospital. I had never even thought that my big mansion might have had a hospital in it.

The Next Day

There was class again today, generally a thing to grumble and groan about, but today, I was actually looking a little forward to it. The new tutor, Mr. B, was a very good teacher, so it was a little more bearable. I walked from my room, a beautiful, lavish suite, to the classroom. I frowned halfway through the door. "Uh, who are you? You aren't the tutor from yesterday." In the room, a young woman stood. She gave a forced smile, and bowed. "No, master, I am not, I was brought in to be a replacement for the old tutor," she said in monotone, "please take a seat. Today, I will teach you about history." Oh, dear. Today was going to be a long, headache filled day. New subjects always tended to do that. Sitting down, I attempted to puzzle out why the tutor and subject matter had been swapped out after only one day.

After some time, the only real thing I had gotten out of this session, it was that I do not like history. And the worst part is, some of this stuff might actually be pretty interesting, if only I was not dying (hyperbolically) of a splitting headache. The one from yesterday was probably worse, or else it had built up my pain tolerance, but this history lesson was so weird! A part of my brain was adamant that none of this was real, and another part argued that the first part couldn't possibly know that, and the PSDNK was in the middle, egging both sides on, going 'oh, you're both right yet both so terribly, terribly wrong'. That's what most of these headaches felt like. Actually, having someone else teaching would help too. This tutor was easily the most boring since Miss Warthing, who taught... well, I honestly don't remember. She was... very dull. Maybe etiquette or something. Ah, well. This new teacher, whose name I didn't care to learn, was seriously grating on my ears. She didn't even seem to notice me stabbing the book I had gotten with my pen. After a few minutes of me trying and partially failing to desecrate the pages; I had managed to cover a good paragraph of the, in hindsight, wholly biased history book in ink, I grit my teeth and spoke. "Look, lady, please, would you just shut up? I would do better to just read the fucking textbook myself, I have never had the pleasure of listening to someone so mind-numbingly dull as you, your voice is giving me a headache." She just about dropped the chalk I hadn't noticed she was holding. She whirled around, suddenly scanning the room, as if she expected someone else to be there. "Ah, perfect. The dull teacher underestimates the intelligence of her mini employer. Great. Perfect even. You ought to get a raise." "Umm, well, I, umm" The tutor stuttered, struggling to find words to match the sudden outburst, her voice no longer monotone. "Ah, the unfortunate sub finds her intonation at last." I snarked, somehow not forming the words consciously.

Have you ever had a, what do they call them, 'out of body experience'? Well, probably not, but you get the concept, right? The sort of thing, where you're doing stuff, but you're more of a passage observer than anything? I think that's what happened here, cause I can't really remember what happened, in fact, the only reason I even know what I said is that second-hand sources had told me how startling it was. I do, however, know what happened a few moments later, when a different kind of headache, where, instead of a sort of back and forth conflict, it felt instead like the PSDNK was throbbing, almost like it was panting from overexertion. During my strange, out of body outburst, I must have stood up, for I swayed slightly on my feet, collapsing onto the floor for the second time in just as many days.

I jolted awake in the small classroom, noticing the woman had fled. I looked up the window, and noticed that the sun was still shining through the window; I couldn't have been asleep for more than a half hour. I stood up and quickly made my way back to my bedroom. I collapsed on the gigantic pile of enormous stuffed animals, and lay there, immobile, for what seemed an eternity.

 **AN: Well, there's the update, now I might actually update my other story. That I also haven't touched for several months. Wow, I really suck! Sorry about the rather abrupt ending, and, for the** _ **n**_ **th time, sorry for taking so damn long to hey, if you think I'm an idiot or need to update more something, leave a review! Well anyways, I got a review, why don't we look at it.**

 _ **Elise477**_ **: Well, first off, thank you! I'm glad to hear you like it, and again, I'm sorry I took so long to update! Second, I apologize for my distinct lack of French skills. Essentially, my special thanks this chapter is to Google Translate. And apparently the flu, for giving me nothing else to do.**


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